Dear Friends,
Excitement, Excitement, Excitement!! This was the subject of Mary Kithuure’s email providing an update on the July 15 Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) seminar attended by 17 teachers from facilities within our network in Western Kenya. This day-long event was an introduction to CEF’s initiatives to evangelize and disciple children. The excitement is because all 17 attendees agreed to reach children in their areas with the gospel of Christ through Good News Clubs, Sunday school, and other ministry opportunities. They will be attending 8 days of hands-on training in mid-November to learn how to most effectively share the gospel with children and lead them into an ever-deepening walk of faith.
Our teams in the US and Kenya share Mary’s excitement, and we are busy working on providing needed materials and funding for the training and the ongoing ministry activities. We are grateful to the staff at Lumino School for Disabled Children for making its library, which we built and furnished for them several years ago, available for the seminar and the November training.
When a teacher at a Good News Club in the US sensed the eagerness of her un-churched students to learn Scripture, she started writing verses on Post-It Notes, so they could take them home. She was delighted to observe that they received them with joy and treated them like they were “pieces of gold.” We agree – the living, active Word of God is precious, and we rejoice in having been able to send more than 100,000 pieces of gold to various countries with our Scripture card packets. Knowing that God’s Word will accomplish His good purposes, we anticipate a rich harvest of fruit from the Spanish Scripture cards we sent to Bolivia and Ecuador in July via missionary teams from Mt. Vernon Baptist Church and Kingsway Community Church.
Our ministry started with sending things to Kenyan orphans, and although we have expanded into building projects and teaching ministries, sending a container of useful and fun things remains one of our core annual projects. Collecting the huge number of articles it takes to fill a 40-foot container would not be possible without the dozens of people who regularly donate to us. We are especially grateful to Mount Vernon and Berea Baptist Churches for their continuing donations of used Sunday school and Scriptural materials along with other items no longer needed. In our last container, we sent a magnificent podium, which had been donated to Mt. Vernon by the family of a former pastor and passed on to us with the family’s blessing. It now graces the altar of the church associated with Upendo Orphanage in the Kibera slums of Nairobi. In his first sermon preaching from the podium, Pastor Naum Ochido talked about giving from one’s heart and prayed for God’s blessings on Serving in Jesus’ Name. We, in turn, pray for God’s blessings on Mt. Vernon and all those we make our ministry possible.
Also in July, we continued with water and latrine projects; supplying Bibles to churches; and making distributions to orphanages and schools.
As always we are grateful for each of you who make it possible for us to continue the ministry of Serving in Jesus’ Name by your prayers, financial support, donated items, and help with sorting and packing. Thank you!!!
Blessings,
Kathy Carlin, Executive Director
